Purpose and Need

As a result litigation by environmental groups on Amendment 8 (EFH), the court upheld NMFS’ approval of the EFH FMP amendments under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, but ruled that the EAs prepared for the amendments violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The court ordered NMFS to complete new and thorough NEPA analyses for each EFH FMP amendment in question. In addition, the court order also required NMFS and the Council to consider the identification of specific HAPCs and associated management measures, with any regulations promulgated by August 13, 2006. This action was to determine whether and how to amend the Council’s FMPs to identify and manage site-specific HAPCs. HAPCs are subsets of EFH that are particularly important to the long-term productivity of one or more managed species, or that are particularly vulnerable to degradation. HAPCs identified as a result of this would receive additional habitat protection to further minimize potential adverse effects of fishing on EFH. HAPCs may be identified based on one or more of the following considerations: ecological importance, sensitivity, stress from development activities, and rarity of the habitat type. The Council required that each HAPC site should meet at least two of those considerations, with one being rarity. 

Analysis

A 283 page EA/RIR/RFA analysis, dated April 2006, was prepared in support of this action. Alternatives for 3 actions, seamounts, GOA corals, and AI corals were analyzed. 

Regulation Summary

This action added fishing closures and gear restrictions to HAPC in the BSAI and GOA. These included the Aleutian Islands Coral Habitat Protection Areas, Aleutian Islands Habitat Conservation Area, and the Gulf of Alaska Coral Habitat Protection Areas. Fishing with all bottom contact gear, including pots, by federally permitted vessels in Alaska Seamount Habitat Protection Areas was prohibited. For the Bowers Ridge Habitat Conservation Zone, fishing with nonpelagic trawl gear in the HCAs and fishing in the HCZ with mobile bottom contact gear was also prohibited. To ensure all directed fishing for pollock was conducted with pelagic trawl gear that met the trawl performance standard, this revision prevented potential opportunistic use of nonpelagic trawl gear for pollock harvest in any CDQ trawl fishery. Finally, this action required VMS transmission while a vessel is operating in the Aleutian Islands subarea or while a vessel is operating in the GOA with mobile bottom contact gear on board.

Results

This action reflected the Council’s commitment to consider new HAPCs in response to the AOC v. Daley litigation which challenged whether FMPs minimized adverse effects of fishing on EFH to the extent practicable. This action was also consistent with the EFH EIS because it addressed potential impacts that are discussed in the EIS, even though the EIS indicated that new management measures were not necessarily required under the MSA. This protected important fish habitat from bottom contact gear, and also reduced potential crab bycatch in the groundfish fisheries. 

Sibling Amendments